Video Games Evolve:
A Brief History from Spacewar! to MMORPGs

Timeline of Events in the History of Video Games

1950s + 60s

1958
Willy Higginbotham at the Brookhaven Labs designs a “tennis-like” game on an oscilloscope purely as a demonstration.

1962
Spacewar! The first interactive computer game is designed at MIT.

1970s

1971
Computer Space, with its futuristic fiberglass design, is the first popular coin-operated video arcade game.

1972
Nolan Bushnell founds Atari. PONG becomes an arcade hit.

Magnavox Odyssey, the world’s first commercial home videogame console, designed by Ralph H. Baer, is released.

1975
Atari’s home PONG is released.

Magnavox Odyssey 200 adds sound and scoring to video badminton.

1975 - 76
Adventure is the original mainframe maze text game designed by William Crowther and Don Woods on a DEC PDP-10.

1976
Fairchild’s Channel F is the first cartridge home videogame system.

Atari is sold to Warner for $28 million.

1977
Fairchild and RCA become extinct as home console manufacturers. Atari survives.

Atari releases its VCS (Video Computer System) —the 2600—which comes with paddle and joystick controllers.

1978
Magnavox releases the Odyssey 2 to compete with Atari’s VCS.

Space Invaders is the first slide-and-shoot game using animated alien characters. Forty-eight of them march across the screen.

1979
Four ex-Atari programmers start Activision, the first videogame software house. Activision makes only cartridges and thrives as a “symbiotic parasite” of the Atari 2600 and subsequent platforms.

With its laser-thin vector graphics, Asteroids is the first arcade game with an electronic scoreboard that lets high-scoring players record their initials onto a trophy screen.

1980s

1980
Atari’s Battlezone finds use by the military for training purposes. It is one of the first games to use three dimensional graphics.

Missle Command simulates a nuclear attack from outer space.

Pac-Man is a wildly popular game. The round yellow creatures become a marketing phenomenon.

1981
Frogger is known for its engaging sound effects.

1982
Donkey Kong is Nintendo’s first American hit with Mario.

ColecoVision comes up with the Atari cartridge adapter.

1984
Warner breaks up Atari.

Nintendo introduces the 8-bit Famicom in Japan.

1985
The 8-bit processor era of home video consoles is dominated by NES, Famicom, and Sega Master Systems.

Gauntlet is the first role-playing arcade game. Up to four people can play.

1986
Nintendo entertainment system (NES) and Super Mario take America by storm.

Sega’s Master System follows NES.

1987
Acclaim is the first software house to manufacture games for Nintendo.

The Legend of Zelda on the Famicom Disk System introduces dozens of different items in-game. The battery-backed memory allows the cartridge to save the player’s progress. It remains one of the most popular games ever.

1988
Nintendo’s NES is the best-selling toy in North America.

1989
Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis are rivals in the 16-bit processor era of home video consoles.

Tetris is designed by Soviet math researcher, Alexej Pajitnov.

1990s

1990
Nintendo releases Super Mario Bros. It is one of the best-selling games of all time and grosses $500 million.

Video game cartridge rental becomes a reality.

Civilization for the PC is launched; it is one of the first games to be carried over from a board game.

1991
Sega introduces Sonic the Hedgehog.

Super NES marks Nintendo’s entry into the 16-bit era.

1992
Mortal Kombat ignites a Congressional controversy because of its violence.

Sega introduces the CD-ROM, but it is still not widespread in game publishing.

Nintendo dominates the 16-bit array with Street Fighter II.

1993
Doom marks the first widespread distribution of a game over the Internet. It is the first very popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).

1994
CD-ROM becomes a viable distribution medium that allows for much more complex and bigger games, as well as the integration of music.

World of Warcraft enters the scene as an online game.

1995
Virtual Fighter 2 introduces creative 3D-rendered fighters.

Nintendo dominates the holiday season with Donkey Kong Country 2, the last of the 16-bit videogames.

U.S. launch of Sony PlayStation. At year’s end, sales worldwide reach 800,000 units (and by March 2005 had reached 102.5 million units).

1996
Nintendo 64 is released.

Nintendo sells its one billionth cartridge worldwide.

1997
Dreamworks-Universal and Sega team up to form a new line of super arcades called GameWorks.

1998
Pokemon, a line of role-playing games that was a craze in Japan, now comes to America.

2000s

2000
Sony launches PlayStation 2. Sales reach 103.7 million units by 2006.

2001
Nintendo releases the GameCube.

2003
Second Life is launched with 16 servers and 1,000 users.

2006
Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all release next-generation consoles.

2007
World of Warcraft passes the 8.5 million player mark with 3.5 million in China and 2.0 million in the United States.

Second Life expands from several hundred thousand online players at the beginning of 2006 to 6.5 million players by spring 2007. Companies like IBM, Cicso, and Nissan, as well as educational institutions like Harvard University, jump “in-world” to figure out how to exploit this virtual world.